Better Millionaire-Maker Cryptocurrency: XRP vs. World Liberty Financial

Key Points

• XRP is making inroads with its target users and expanding its platform.

• World Liberty Financial doesn't have any mechanism to drive demand for its token.

• There's an obvious winner here.

• 10 stocks we like better than XRP ›

Many investors dream of finding the one asset that can truly change their financial trajectory for the better. History shows that the biggest wealth-building investments in crypto usually have a clear path to long-term and large-scale adoption, most typically as a result of the asset's core growth engine. That's why a select few digital assets have minted millionaires, while most others, no matter how much hype they generate or who is backing them, are unlikely to deliver similar outcomes.

On that note, at the moment, two very different cryptocurrencies are in the spotlight. XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), the token at the heart of Ripple's payments network, is continuing to expand its use cases for financial institutions. Meanwhile, World Liberty Financial (CRYPTO: WLFI) has launched USD1, a fee-generating stablecoin, along with its governance token, which is backed by the Trump family brand.

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But which has the better odds of making investors into a millionaire?

Image source: Getty Images.

Why XRP could be good for wealth-building

XRP's investment thesis is that it's in the process of becoming indispensable financial plumbing for cross-border value movement, and for blockchain-based asset settlement.

Ripple's financial products stack keeps pushing in that direction, and the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is adding institution-friendly features that reduce compliance friction along the way, which incentivizes them to use the chain instead of another alternative option like Ethereum for getting smart contract functionality. Recent protocol work has added authorized trust lines and identity credentials -- tools that let issuers gate who can hold their tokens and embed know-your-customer (KYC) checks directly on-chain. This feature set matters because institutional users want native compliance controls, not a patchwork of third-party modules like they'd need if they used Ethereum or a few other competing chains.

If distribution of XRP widens through mainstream brokerage channels, and it likely will, the upside for investors can compound. There are a handful of active attempts to get regulatory approval to list spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with several applications bunched into the upcoming October decision window. Getting access to retirement capital and other forms of capital from traditional financial accounts could be a significant unlock for catalyzing upward price movement.

Still, XRP is probably not a millionaire-maker moonshot candidate at this point in time.

Its market cap is nearly $180 billion, so even if it grew by 10X, it'd still take a very large initial investment to make $1 million or more, as well as a lot of patience. Nonetheless, with steady purchasing of it over time, ongoing improvements to the protocol, and a few more big catalysts, it's still faintly possible to envision a long-term-oriented investor making plenty of wealth from this coin over the course of years.

World Liberty Financial is not worth buying

The first thing to know about World Liberty Financial is that it's one of the Trump family's cryptocurrency businesses.

World Liberty Financial's flagship product is USD1, a fiat currency-backed stablecoin. The business earns interest on the reserves and fees on minting, redemption, or network services. It's unclear what advantages USD1 has over other stablecoins, if any, so it is not reasonable to expect its adoption to be widespread.

Nor is it reasonable to expect a significant return from USD1's fees; the project's own terms state the sole utility of the WLFI token is governance for the crypto project, with no economic rights for token holders or governance rights for the actual company that issues the token. So if fee-based revenue accrues, it goes to the venture, not the outside holder of WLFI.

Furthermore, a very large portion of the governance token's supply is held by the Trump family, their associates, and business entities associated with those two groups of people.

In terms of its allocation, only around 20% of the token's total outstanding supply has either been sold to the public at the market, or earmarked for a later sale; the rest is in the hands of the aforementioned insiders. So when you buy this token, you get the "right to vote" on the token's governance issues, but it's structurally guaranteed that you'll absolutely never ever have enough heft to decide anything contrary to what the owners want, even if you're willing to buy millions of dollars worth of the token.

Without profit rights, a demand generator for the coin other than hype, or a real say in governance, World Liberty Financial is effectively a meme coin.

This is an easy call

If your aim is long-term wealth building, pick the asset whose upside is tied to expanding real-world use, improving compliance primitives, and mainstream distribution. The winner on those counts is unambiguously XRP, and it is not a close call whatsoever. WLFI is not designed to make outside holders rich; it will probably actually make most investors poorer.

For millionaire-maker potential, XRP is a dramatically more likely candidate, even if you probably shouldn't hold your breath waiting for massive XRP returns.

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Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.